


Make it Rain

by dreamsofdramione



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Community: hp_drizzle, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Time, HP Drizzle Fest 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Marking, Miscommunication, Pining, Possessive Draco Malfoy, Reunions, Romance, Secret Relationship, Smut, Songfic, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26233660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamsofdramione/pseuds/dreamsofdramione
Summary: It is raining the first time Draco Malfoy kisses Hermione Granger.Or more accurately, the first timeshekisseshim.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 39
Kudos: 424
Collections: HP Drizzle Fest 2020





	Make it Rain

**Author's Note:**

> _When the sins of my father  
>  Weigh down in my soul  
> And the pain of my mother  
> Will not let me go  
> Well I know there can come fire from the sky  
> To refine the purest of kings  
> And even though  
> I know this fire brings me pain  
> Even so  
> And just the same  
> Make it rain ___  
>  _  
>  ___   
>  [Make it Rain - Ed Sheeran](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA_cb6EXQXU)   
>    
> 

**November 1998**

It is raining the first time Draco Malfoy kisses Hermione Granger. 

Or more accurately, the first time _she_ kisses _him._

He's so shocked for a moment by the onslaught of it all—the bite of fat drops against the cut of his cheek, the bow of her lip sliding along his own, the press of her hands bunching the soaking lapels of his cloak—that he almost doesn't kiss her back. 

_Almost._

But Draco is nothing if not an opportunist, and this is an opportunity he can’t pass up. 

Her back is pressed against the rough stone of the closest alcove, and all thoughts of rounds and rain and which houses had the most deviants that night fly right out of his brain when she moans— _actually fucking moans—_ into his mouth. 

The rain beats steadily just outside, slanting sideways into the courtyard, but they're soaking wet and slippery, and all Draco can focus on is the thrum of her pulse under his tongue and the way she wriggles against him. 

He’s imagined this before; imagined the way her curves might feel against his palms, the way her lips might taste. In his imagination, the possibilities are limitless, but expectation and reality are two very different things—have _always_ been two very different things—for the likes of Draco Malfoy. He doesn’t even have to think about associating a flavour to her particular brand of kiss because the feel of her lips alone is so utterly incomprehensible he actually forgets to think at all. 

His hands are acting of their own accord before his brain has even given the command. They’re slipping into her robes and curving around the dip in her waist, running over the swell of her back, digging into the flesh of her thighs, and _Gods_ , those thighs. They’re wrapped around his hips like they belong there, and their tongues are twined together. Draco doesn’t think he’s _ever_ been so fucking far gone in his life. It isn’t muscle memory, by any means, because he’s never traversed the bends of her body before. It isn’t a sense of familiarity with her form or her force at all, in fact, but it _is_ natural. 

Instinctive. 

Hermione pulls back and only then does Draco realize his fingertips are sliding under the simple band of her cotton knickers. 

_Fuck._

Then a little niggling doubt works its way to the surface of his consciousness, rippling out as he processes the position they’re in. The first coherent thought he can form, beyond how beautiful she looks in the moment, is exactly where an experience like this could lead. Growing up with a name that amassed the weight of generations' worth of expectations, he’s cursed with a vexing sense of foresight. The future, whatever it may look like, certainly doesn’t include someone like him on the arm of the Brightest Witch of Her Age.

Panting and silent, they just stare at each other for a long moment. Her eyes are half-lidded, and her hair’s a little frizzy around the edges. She’s become better at beauty charms since the start of the year, thanks to Pansy’s influence no doubt, but he thinks there’s something especially sexy about seeing her a little rattled. Her tie is loose, her eyes are wild, and fuck if it isn’t the most gorgeous sight he’s ever seen in his life. 

“We uh—” Hermione clears her throat and uncurls her legs from around his hips. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“Save it.” Draco’s already turning and resuming the path to their rounds before she can even reply. He _knows_ exactly what she’s about to say, and there is quite literally _nothing_ he wants to hear less at that moment than a fucking apology. 

She’s always been too stubborn for her own good, so he really shouldn't be surprised when he hears the persistent click of her heels take two steps to each of his one. “Malfoy, I—Draco, stop. _Please.”_

He spins around so fast his robes billow, and it only takes two steps before their noses nearly touch. “I don’t have time for your apologies, Granger. I get it. Message received. Loud and fucking—”

At first Draco thinks it’s his imagination playing a trick on him. 

His nerves are still buzzing, and her fingers are twisting in the wayward strands of his hair.

Her lips are… _persistent._

She whispers, “No one can know.” 

The words even taste sour on her tongue when she kisses him again. 

But he gives in. 

He _fucking agrees,_ because hell if he doesn’t deserve to truly have _her_ , of all people, the Golden Girl. No, he doesn’t deserve to know what it feels like to have every piece of her gathered in his arms, but he’ll torture himself and pretend. He’ll collect any scrap of herself she’ll throw his way, and Merlin forbid he’ll probably fucking thank her before this is all over.

* * *

**January 1999**

“Is this even safe?” Hermione’s voice trembles a little as she stares at his broom, gripping the hem of her skirt and twisting it nervously. She’s biting her lip, and she appears to be reconsidering every choice she’s made up to this point, and Draco can’t help himself when he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her into his side. His lips find her temple, and her hands land on his chest. It’s so easy to be with her like this, with most of the students home for the break and the castle deserted. No prying eyes to pay witness to the stolen moment.

“You’ll be fine,” he murmurs against her temple. “Fair’s fair. You promised. And you trust me, right?”

Even when she tilts her head to the side and narrows her eyes, he knows the answer. “If you so much as—”

“I won’t.” 

“But it’s raining and—”

“Magic is a wonderful thing, Granger.”

Draco flicks his wand in a practised manner, and it spouts a canopy that hovers over them both. Her eyes are wide with wonder when he tucks his wand away, and he has to duck his head to hide the smirk tilting his lips. 

“Remarkable.” Slim fingers trail just inside the dry boundary of the make-shift magical cover. When he takes a step towards the broom, the charm expands to keep them both cocooned. “How did you—?”

“It’s a modified umbrella charm, not an atom bomb.” Draco lazily tosses a leg over the broom and motions for her to follow. 

There’s a strange look on her face when she asks, “An atom bomb, really? Where on Earth did you learn about that?”

He scoffs, scooting back as she slides on the broom in front of him. His arms wind around her waist, and she leans back into him, pressing her shoulders against his chest. “Muggle Studies isn’t all bad.”

* * *

**June 1999**

It’s a special form of torture being Draco Malfoy. An exquisite torment to hold her like this, to kiss her like this, to _feel_ her like this. Like for once something he wanted is finally, blessedly his, knowing all the while it is not and cannot be.

Hermione’s name drips from his lips in a plea, a prayer, a divine benediction in its rawest form. 

He tells himself he can have _this._

Just this once. 

He tells himself it’ll be enough.

He’s barely pulled off her jumper and their fucking shoes are still on and they’re stumbling and fumbling their way to his private dorm, arguably the best perk of being Head Boy, and he knows now that he’d been wrong. This had been a miscalculation of epic proportions. Underestimating her had never turned out well before; he doesn’t know why he ever thought this was a good idea. 

But he can’t stop himself either.

His body responds to her every cue, and he can’t make himself stop muttering curses into her skin, sealing each sentiment with a kiss.

Hermione even _tastes_ divine. Draco’s on his knees off the end of the bed, her nails are scraping his scalp, and he never, ever, _ever_ wants this night to end. He wants to string out every second and savour this time because he knows this is it. This is all they can have and only this once.

They were never meant to last. 

They were doomed from the start, and somewhere along the way in the past few months he’d let himself believe otherwise. But reality and expectation are always on opposite sides of a stark divide in his life, and of course matters regarding her would be no exception to the rule.

People like Draco don’t get to feel the way he does right now. They shouldn’t, he tells himself. Not when he’s the one who knows he’ll pick up the pieces of tonight’s memory and carry them with him, away from here, away from her, the very next day. 

When he finally slips inside of her, harder than he thinks he’s ever been, her eyes are already half-lidded, and her lips are relentless as she cements herself in his mind, in a place only one person can ever hold. 

She will forever be his first, and he will always be hers.

Some sick sense of satisfaction settles in his chest as her nails carve their imprints into his back. He swallows every gasp and slides his tongue against hers and thinks that yes, this _is_ it. 

So yes, it is an exquisite form of torture being Draco Malfoy. He’s determined to explore every part of her before the night is over, amassing a veritable stockpile of segments and fractures of the times when he, traitor to one side and pariah to the other, made her feel like _this._

* * *

**June 2001**

“Who _is_ Draco Malfoy?” The redhead in front of him has every inch of her assets on full display. She’s clearly spent some time dolling up for the evening. She also clearly has no idea she doesn’t stand a chance against the figment of what he once almost had. 

Leave it to some stranger to ask the same question he can’t answer for himself anymore. Is he more than his name? More than his reputation? After his mother's passing a few months before, it’s a question that won’t seem to leave him alone. Of all people in the world, this woman has no right to an answer he doesn’t even know yet. 

Draco tips back his third drink, listening to the tink of the cubes against glass and hisses as he drops it back down to the bartop. The tips of her nails—sharp and cherry red—dig into the sleeve of his suit, and he has to pry her talons off the expensive material before it snags. “I’m—”

“Bit of a tosser, really.” He doesn’t have to turn around; even slightly slurred, he’d know that voice anywhere. 

Running a finger around the rim of his glass, Draco peeks back up to the woman leaning in far too close for comfort, a smirk curling his lips. “She’s not wrong.”

-

Draco remembers now why he doesn’t drink to excess. His tongue is loose, his lips are twisted, and he can’t seem to convince himself that what he’s doing—what _they’re_ doing with her hand on his knee and his eyes fixed on the bow of her lips—is a bad idea. 

He knows better than to say anything, but his brain and his lips don’t seem to agree when he says, “It’s not, you know… It’s not your fault.” 

“It is though.” Then her slim fingers relax against his knee, and he knows there’s something wrong with this picture, but he doesn’t have any inclination to stop. 

It’s been far too long since he’s studied her up close like this. There are fine lines around her whiskey-colored eyes that weren’t there two years ago, but everything else looks much the same. He thinks she wears maturity well, more beautiful than he even remembers. “I never should have… We weren’t meant to be, and I—I guess it always comes back to me, to my choices. I am the… It’s just always my fault, ultimately. I—it—” 

Expecting her to say something else, he waits and waits, watching the way her free hand traces the grain of the wood. 

She _has_ to know that it’s really not her fault, not for them, at least, and he can’t imagine a scenario in the world where splitting with Ron Weasley, of _all_ people, could land the blame squarely on her shoulders. He’s too far gone to filter himself, so he figures maybe he should be the one to tell her. “But it’s—”

“Shhh.” Hermione presses a finger against his still-parted lips, and he has the urge to purse them, to kiss the tips, but he doesn’t.

-

The firewhisky burns straight through any sense of resolve he’d hoped to clutch earlier in the night. 

It's a split-second decision, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of the door to the bar. As they stumble out into the lazy drizzle and down the cobblestone street with their hands interlocked, she doesn't pull away. In fact, she's the one who turns into an alley and presses him against the bricks, her lips hovering a hair's breadth away from his. 

Hermione kisses him then, a hard, fast, punishing sort of meeting of lips. His hands find the familiar curve of her waist in no time. 

When she pulls back, her eyes are half-lidded when she says, "Just for tonight?" 

It's not really a question—it's never _been_ a question in his mind. He has never been able to say no to her.

Draco’s flat is much nicer than his dorm ever was, and some sick part of him hopes whatever happens here tonight will be enough to replace her last memory of him like this. He doesn’t want to be the man etched into their tainted memories anymore. 

He hopes that now he’s not. 

-

He says her given name like it’s the only word he knows, over and over again, letting it roll around on his tongue and touch every part of his mouth. Every letter tastes sweet as they fall from his lips in a string of smooth syllables. 

She’s different than he remembers, but still achingly familiar. Her curves have filled out but his hands still know the map of her body by nothing more than memory. It feels like he’s reading an old book with new eyes and finding passages he’s never fully appreciated before. 

He presses his prints into the swell of her hips and sinks his teeth into her shoulder. Many things have changed over the last few years, but his need to mark her, to claim her in some arbitrary fashion and leave irrefutable evidence of himself on her body has not wavered. He wants her to remember that _his_ lips sucked the bruise into the curve of her neck.

It’s only fair. He’s incapable of forgetting a single second of their time together—years apart have proven that—and it’s only fair she’ll be forced to stare at his brand on the delicate patches of skin until they fade. He wants to linger longer than the marks on her body, but even he isn’t stupid enough to fall prey to the meaningless notion of hope. 

* * *

**August 2001**

It should be frightening, how quickly he’s fallen back into the pattern of this old habit, but as Draco flips his latest client files closed and leans back against the lumpy couch she refuses to replace, he isn’t scared. He feels like a student again, but they’re not in Hogwarts. It seems surreal sometimes. He can’t honestly say he’s adjusted to it, but they’re teetering on the same precipice that he backed away from years ago. 

It’s an unspoken understanding, something neither has enunciated, but an agreement all the same. Draco doesn’t ask, and Hermione doesn’t offer. He doesn’t push, and she doesn’t pull. They’ve landed in this odd middle ground of shared meals and clothes at each others' places. He lets himself wonder, from time to time, if it could have always been like this—if he’d placed his own priorities above those of the next heir to an ancient house with a history of tarnished prestige—could he have really had her?

He shakes his head and looks at the clock—five minutes until their reservation. “Hermi—”

Draco blames her lack of heels for his shock. If she’d been wearing them, he would have heard her coming down the hall. The way his words die on his lips is entirely due to a lack of common courtesy on her part. Instead, she’s decided on flat shoes, a new pair he’s never seen before, and a simple crimson summer dress.

“Is it—I mean do I look okay?” Hermione pinches the hem of the dress between her fingers and twists the material in a nervous tell he’s known about for far too many years for it to go unnoticed now. They haven’t done this before, not even back when they were both starry-eyed students. He knows this is important to her, and he’ll never admit it but it’s important to him, too. “You didn’t really specify a dress code so I just thought—”

“It’s perfect.” His heart thumps hard in his chest when she smiles.

Curled into a smirk, his lips find hers just before he Apparates them both.

Of all the things Draco had planned for—dietary specifications, proximity, and privacy of the location for their first official date, just to name a few—he’d lacked the foresight to realise the closest Apparition point to the restaurant was uncovered. 

For a split second, he expects Hermione to duck out of the rain, mourning the effects of moisture on her look for the evening, but he catches himself when she laughs so loud it feels infectious. He can’t help himself when he leans forward and captures her lips in a kiss.

Soft. Slow. _Sweet._

Draco leans his forehead against hers and whispers the Umbrella Charm as a swath of magic lifts above their heads. She looks up and his gaze follows, watching the heavy droplets bead and slide off the invisible surface. 

“You still haven’t taught me that one yet.” 

“Now why would I ever do that?” With his hand low on her back, he steers them to the restaurant. “If I told you my secrets, you’d have no use for me anymore. As it stands, I’m fairly useful on rainy days.” He glances down to see her smile. “Though I’d like to think I’m useful a little more often than that.” He’d meant for it to be teasing, a light jab about his prowess, but her brows knit together before she slips her fingers against his. 

His heart beats double time, and his breath catches in his throat. 

“Useful might be exaggerating it a bit.” 

He huffs out a breath as she nudges him in the side and feels like he can breathe again. She’s become rather good at that over the last few years, apparently. Or maybe just the last few months. Either way, she seems to know when he puts himself out just a hair past his boundaries, and she always seems to pull him back.

* * *

**September 2001**

Draco and Hermione have their first fight before he even has a proper label for whatever she is in his life. It’s over something stupid too, which makes him even angrier. Swishing the firewhisky around in the highball glass, he tries not to look at the clock and count the minutes until he gives in and goes back to her with his tail between his legs to apologise. Not that he feels like he has anything to apologise for, but he knows how stubborn she can be. 

Forty-six whole minutes pass before the final dregs of his drink are gone. 

Too tipsy to Apparate and uncertain whether she’s left her Floo open for him or not, he decides the only way to get to her is to walk through the rain. He doesn’t even have the energy to conjure the Umbrella Charm. As the rain pelts down on him, his clothes feel heavier with each additional drop, and he thinks about what he’s going to say. The steady downpour is soothing, sobering him each step of the way.

His knock echoes through her flat, and he leans against the doorway, counting the seconds that pass by the drips of water pooling on the floor. He makes a mental note to spell them away before he leaves. He doesn’t hear her mutter the unlocking spell, but the click of the locks sliding open catches his attention. 

The door isn’t even all the way open before he starts to speak. “I’m sorry, Hermione. I shouldn’t have—”

“It’s fine.” Puffy and red around the rims, her eyes appear glassy, and a pang of guilt strikes him so hard he has to take an extra breath before he can speak. 

“It’s not fine. But I’d rather not discuss this while soaking straight through your mat on your doorstep. Do you mind if I come in and clean up a little?”

-

The mug of tea between his hands is warm when he finally works up the courage to say what he’s turned over in his head a hundred times by now. The drying spells worked well enough but he still feels himself shiver.

“I’m sorry if I—”

“It’s okay.” Hermione looks at him with the sweetest sincerity, and it does nothing but make him feel worse. “I mean it’s not, but I understand. A little. I think.”

Draco sighs. “I never meant to insinuate—”

“I know.” 

“I mean we haven’t discussed…” Draco’s fingers flex against the mug. He keeps his eyes on its contents as he prepares to say something that puts him back out on the precipice. “I had no real expectations of monogamy. I had no right to—”

“I said it’s okay.” Hermione grabs his mug and sets it aside on the table before twisting her fingers between his. “Look at me, please.” 

He never can say no. 

“Really, it’s fine. I don’t know how I’d feel if I thought you were seeing someone else so I can’t blame you for being upset at the thought. And I know I have no right to feel that way because we aren’t—we haven’t… But I know I wouldn’t want you—”

“I wouldn’t.” The words are out of his mouth before he even realizes how true they are. He wouldn’t. He hasn’t. For longer than she probably even knows. 

“Okay.” Hermione says it on a breath, exhaling something he can’t quite name. 

They may not be at a point to wade through the past, and he’s not ready to make a promise he isn’t positive he’ll keep, but this is enough. This can be more than enough. It’s more than he’s ever had, and more than he thinks he probably deserves. 

Clear communication has never been their strong suit, but she’s said enough for him to read between her lines. When she looks up, he leans down, and their lips bridge the gap their words haven’t managed to fill.

And maybe, just maybe, being Draco Malfoy isn’t torture anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my alphas and betas: [floorcoaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/floorcoaster/pseuds/floorcoaster), [inadaze22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inadaze22/pseuds/inadaze22), [PacificRimbaud](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PacificRimbaud/pseuds/PacificRimbaud), [msmerlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/msmerlin/pseuds/msmerlin), and [bionically](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bionically/pseuds/bionically). Each of you were invaluable to my creative process with this piece. Thanks for putting up with all of my uncertainties. <3
> 
> Thank you for reading! Comments & kudos **always appreciated!**


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